


The Eagle and his Wings

by Eglantine



Series: Joly&Bossuet&Musichetta [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, F/M, Irreverence, M/M, Multi, Mystery solving, Threesomes, Unrequited Love, brilliant plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 16:12:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1556384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eglantine/pseuds/Eglantine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Courfeyrac sets himself to solving the mystery of Joly and Musichetta's latest quarrel, and finds that Bossuet knows more than he's telling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eagle and his Wings

The world, it seemed, had been plunged temporarily into chaos, and Courfeyrac was determined to put it right. 

Marius was so mortified by the response to his Napoleonic rhapsody at the café that he had been assiduously avoiding Courfeyrac for three days now—which, Courfeyrac pointed out, was very obvious and very awkward, seeing as they were neighbors, and he (Courfeyrac) was on the verge of hiding himself under Marius’s bed or perhaps behind a bookshelf in order to force Marius into a conversation. 

Joly, meanwhile, was in such dramatic fits of despair over his and Musichetta’s ongoing quarrel that even Prouvaire was beginning to grow skeptical. 

“Something has to be done, really,” Courfeyrac declared at last. It was early afternoon and the only patrons of the Corinthe were Courfeyrac, Bahorel, and Grantaire. “Only it’s impossible to make Joly stop lamenting long enough to tell us what happened.” 

“Musichetta says, via Irma, that his fault was an unspeakable one,” Grantaire offered. “And then she, alas, declined to speak of it.”

“Irma?” Bahorel echoed, almost choking on his wine. “Irma _Boissy?_ What were _you_ doing with--?” 

“Let us stick to the matter at hand, gentlemen,” Courfeyrac declared in his best impression of Enjolras’s most commanding tone. Grantaire offered a sage smile and Bahorel shook his head. 

“Well,” Bahorel said. “There is an obvious answer.” 

A pause. Bahorel smiled smugly. Courfeyrac and Grantaire leaned in. 

“…Yes?” Courfeyrac prompted at last.

“Someone,” Bahorel said with great gravity, “must go a-hunting for an eagle.” 

*

“I know it’s rather a lot to ask,” Courfeyrac was saying, though Bossuet’s bemused smile seemed to indicate that it was really no imposition at all. “Asking you to report on your bosom friend, I mean, but—well, something must be done. About this Musichetta situation. And I flatter myself that, if I only knew what had happened between them, I might be able to help a bit and restore poor Joly’s spirits. Besides, Enjolras is getting quite tired of the subject taking up half of every meeting.”

“No doubt,” Bossuet agreed, smiling still. 

“So,” Courfeyrac said, pleased that Bossuet seemed to be taking it so well. 

“So,” Bossuet echoed. 

Courfeyrac blinked. “I think we’ve misunderstood each other. What I’m asking is—what did Joly and Musichetta quarrel about?” 

“Ah.” Bossuet leaned back in his chair with a grin. “You know, I haven’t the slightest? He’s entirely too distraught to speak of it coherently. I made my usual sort of joke about giving a funeral oration, it went over quite badly.”

“And you know it’s a crisis when jokes about death don’t cheer Joly up,” Courfeyrac mused. “But how can you not know? You live with him, you must have seen or heard something.”

“I don’t always live with him,” Bossuet said. “I’ve been staying with Prouvaire lately, as it happens. I just must have missed it, I suppose.”

When Courfeyrac arrived at home, it struck him quite suddenly, but with absolutely, entire certainty that Bossuet had been lying. 

*

“I don’t know why you won’t help. It’s problem-solving, it’s your area of expertise!”

“Not on this subject,” Combeferre said, and Courfeyrac was glad that he at least had the grace to look amused rather than disgusted. “You’re on your own for this one, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t you care about your fellow man?” Courfeyrac cried. “Don’t you care about your fellow student? Our Jolllly’s plumage positively _wilts_ , mon cher ‘ferre.”

“I’m not entirely convinced that this isn’t some kind of romantic hypochondria he’s developed, to be honest,” Combeferre said, returning to his book, as if pretending to read would suddenly turn gossiping into something serious and proper. “Joly is utterly devoted to Mlle. Musichetta. I can’t imagine what he could have done to drive her away—it was certainly nothing intentional, and she does not seem the type to hold some stray remark against him for this long.” 

Well, Courfeyrac thought, it was a start. 

*

(Marius, meanwhile, had been forced to move out due to lack of means—though Courfeyrac took Marius’s coming to him for advice on the subject as reconciliation enough.) 

*

“So here’s my brilliant plan,” Courfeyrac said. Bossuet looked surprised, but Courfeyrac wasn’t sure if it was at being so addressed, or because it was absolutely unheard of for the both of them to bother to attend a lecture on the same day. Or perhaps because of being so addressed in the middle of said lecture. 

“What is your brilliant plan?” he asked, making slightly more effort than Courfeyrac had to keep his voice to a whisper. 

“You will talk to Musichetta and find out what the matter is!” Courfeyrac beamed. “She knows you, she trusts you, she’ll certainly tell you. Then you can tell me and I will solve everything.” 

Somehow, Bossuet did not immediately burst into applause at the brilliance of his plan—indeed, he said nothing, even after being given what Courfeyrac deemed a more than ample window in which to do so.

“Did you hear me? Isn’t it brilliant?” 

“I— don’t think that’s such a good plan,” Bossuet said, eyes fixed on the lecturer, which was itself suspicious. Courfeyrac narrowed his eyes, but leaned back into his chair without saying anything further. Once the lecture adjourned, however, he slung his arm around Bossuet’s shoulders so that he could not escape.

“And what is wrong with my plan?” he asked, steering the both of them towards one of their usual cafés. 

“Because—” Bossuet sighed. “Because Musichetta’s rather displeased with me, too.” 

“Ha!” Courfeyrac threw up his arms in triumph. “So it was a lie!” 

“In a manner of speaking,” Bossuet conceded. “Come along, then. I’ll need some wine before I tell you more.” 

Courfeyrac considered the chance to get to the bottom of his mission more than worth even the copious amounts of wine Bossuet perfectly content to allow someone else to pay for. Courfeyrac hustled them along and ensconced them in a tucked-away corner of the café with record speed. Hats off, wine delivered, and small talk dispensed with, Courfeyrac jumped to the point. 

“Get on with it, then. I can’t believe you would lie to me. Whatever happened to fraternité?”

“It’s only that it’s… complicated. And you know how I prefer simplicity. Hence my austere lifestyle.” Courfeyrac snorted. “At any rate. When it comes to Musichetta, on occasion, Joly and I… share.” 

“Share,” Courfeyrac echoed. “As in, you take her out sometimes, or…?”

“In the sense of the three of us, together.”

“The three of… and you dare, you dare to claim to have bad luck? Musichetta is one of the prettiest girls in Paris, and you don’t even have to pick up the bill!” 

Bossuet laughed. “Prettiest, is she? I thought you preferred blue eyes.”

“And Musichetta is the exception that proves the rule,” Courfeyrac replied simply. “Really though, this is… And I can’t believe you never told me, after all the orgies I’ve had to listen to you describe in graphic, graphic detail… Then again,” he added, “I suppose I should be grateful to be spared any graphic details about Joly. I’ve never had a ménage a trois with another man, actually. Do you recommend it, would you say?”

“Well, it’s led to this ridiculous row, so perhaps not,” Bossuet said. “It happens infrequently. And after this latest occasion, Musichetta was… unhappy. And so she and Joly quarreled, and because I was there she’s angry with me as well, and that’s that.” 

“No, no, that explains nothing at all!” Courfeyrac protested. “Why was she angry, what happened? This gets us no closer to solving the problem than before, unless it was your inclusion that troubled her, which it couldn’t be, since you say it has happened before.” 

Bossuet passed a hand over his head, as if smoothing back non-existent hair. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment, then scratched the bridge of his nose. Courfeyrac realized suddenly that he was witnessing a heretofore unimagined sight: Bossuet uncertain of what to say. 

“May I draw a Roman parallel?” he managed at last.

“Please do,” Courfeyrac said. “They are my favorite kind.” 

“Take, if you will, the first triumvirate. Caesar, Antony, and poor old Lepidus. I need not even explain why I say poor old Lepidus—and therein lies my point. In a group of three, there is very often, at least at times, a degree of… exclusion. Of one of the parties. Particularly given that a person only has one mouth.” 

“Ahhh.” Courfeyrac leaned back in his chair, clarity dawning at last. “So, Joly was put out at being the Lepidus of your triumvirate, if you will, and picked a quarrel, and Musichetta told him where he could stuff it. Which means she is angry with you for… ah, failing to choose sides, was it? That’s always a deadly trap.” 

“No. It was her.” 

“What was her?”

“She was put out because she was being—excluded.” Bossuet let out a breath. “I believe the conclusion she ultimately reached was that if we wanted a go with each other, she had no interest in being our pretense. Her language was rather less polite, of course. Poor Joly was flustered and not particularly coherent—understandably, given the circumstances—so he did not succeed in presenting his case with his usual finesse. I sensed that my input would not be welcome, so I exercised my seldom-used powers of discretion. And off she stormed, and Joly pines, and here we are.” 

A small silence passed.

Then Courfeyrac burst out laughing.

“It’s not that funny,” Bossuet said, but he couldn’t help smiling himself. 

“My friend, the two of you find yourselves with problems no one else could begin to imagine,” Courfeyrac said, trying to to catch his breath. “Anyway, she’s got entirely the wrong idea. Anyone can see that Joly is mad about her.” 

“He is. He loves her, I think,” Bossuet said. 

“Well, so! Sometimes it takes hearing it from a third party to believe that it’s true. I shall speak to Mlle. Musichetta, and this shall be solved in no time. You’re still staying with Prouvaire, are you?” 

“Bahorel, now.”

“Come stay with me. Give the pair of them some space, and they’ll patch it up just like that.” Courfeyrac raised his glass with a grin. “Well, with my help, of course.” 

Bossuet tapped his glass against Courfeyrac’s and smiled and said nothing.

*

Though order had been restored and Bahorel soon reported that he and his mistress stayed out dancing until all hours out with Joly and Musichetta, Courfeyrac couldn’t set aside the nagging feeling that something was still not quite right, something had shifted that he had not yet managed to slot back into place. 

He found himself, in the weeks to come, watching Bossuet. He wasn’t entirely sure why at first, but he had learned to trust these sorts of instincts about people—that often, when someone caught his eye (as Enjolras and Bossuet himself had in law lectures the year before, as Marius had that day in the street), it was because there was something worth seeing. 

So, he watched Bossuet, which more often than not meant watching Joly, too, as they seemed to be more of a pair now than before. And sometimes it meant watching Bossuet watch Joly. 

Which was interesting.

*

“I have a bone to pick with you.”

Joly, with a glass of wine halfway to his lips, looked alarmed. Courfeyrac, pretending not to notice this, noisily dragged over a chair and sat down next to him.

“Bossuet has told me your secret,” Courfeyrac said, raising a brow suggestively. Joly blinked, an expression that his spectacles and round cheeks always rendered particularly owlish. 

“What secret might that be?” he asked uncertainly. “I’m sure Bossuet knows a great many things about me by now.”

“About the two of you and Musichetta, of course,” Courfeyrac said. “A secret that oughtn’t to be a secret at all. As I was saying to Bossuet, I can hardly believe he could restrain himself from boasting about it.”

“Oh, that.” To Courfeyrac’s slight surprise, Joly laughed. “Yes, well. It’s been a while since we last did that. It wasn’t meant to be a secret, really… I suppose it just never came up.”

“No, those things don’t tend to,” Courfeyrac said dryly. “So that’s all it was, then? A passing fancy that has passed?”

“Well, yes.” Joly frowned, puzzled. “What else would it be? Did Musichetta say something to you?”

“No, not a thing,” Courfeyrac replied, waving his hand dismissively. “I only wondered. I can’t help but read into a secret, you know.” 

Joly grinned. “Too many novels, I expect. But tell me, while we’re on the subject, what’s this Bahorel tells me about Grantaire and Irma? That’s just one of his lies, surely…?” 

*

It proved to be one of those nights that stretches on longer than it has any right to, when everyone gets a little too drunk before finally either slipping into silent thoughtfulness or stumbling home. Courfeyrac found Bossuet in the former state, seated by himself, watching with a bemused smile as the rest stumbled towards the door. Courfeyrac sat down heavily in the chair beside him, and Bossuet turned to him with a drunk, sleepy smile. 

“I got it all wrong, didn’t I.” 

“Did you?” Bossuet asked. “I don’t know, what are we talking about?” 

Courfeyrac looked to the door, where Joly, thanks to his level of intoxication, was proving entirely unequal to the task of winding his rather large scarf around himself. He noticed Courfeyrac and Bossuet looking at him and froze in a tangle of wool.

“Are you coming, Bossuet?” he asked. Bossuet looked from Joly to Courfeyrac, then down to the table— just for an instant— before offering Joly a smile.

“I shall spare you my snoring for a night and roost with Courfeyrac,” he replied, clapping Courfeyrac on the shoulder. Joly shrugged and wandered for the door, half his scarf trailing on the ground behind him. Courfeyrac and Bossuet managed to hold in their laughter until he was safely out the door. Then they lapsed into silence for a few moments, Bossuet leaning back against his chair, Courfeyrac picking at the wood grain of the table.

“I’m talking about the damned Musichetta affair, of course,” Courfeyrac burst out at last. Bossuet sat up. “You explained it to me, and I still got it wrong.”

“You didn’t at all, you see the two of them are—”

Courfeyrac broke in: “I got _your_ part of it wrong.” 

Bossuet’s gaze flicked down to the table. Then he smiled, but said nothing, and did not raise his eyes. 

“You know,” Courfeyrac said, watching him. “I’ve realized that I have no idea what it means when you smile. You laugh at everything… but it can’t be that _nothing_ troubles you.” 

“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio—’”

“Augh, don’t speak English to me, I’m much too drunk for that. Listen, do you love him?” 

It wasn’t precisely how Courfeyrac had meant it to come out, but the English had muddled him, and the smiling and, well, there it was. Bossuet’s gaze was still fixed on the table, and though his expression and position did not change, something seemed to settle over him for an instant, something like a stillness—but maybe not, because before Courfeyrac could put his finger on it, it was gone. He turned to Courfeyrac.

“Have I ever told you about my father?” Bossuet said, which was definitely not the response Courfeyrac was expecting.

“Well—no.”

“He could talk his way into anything. Into a post office position, into marrying the prettiest girl in Meaux—so I’m told, at any rate, you know I never take people at their word when it comes to pretty women…” He grinned, then continued. “He talked himself from being the grandson of a kennel-keeper into a farmer with his own land. His philosophy was to trust that everything would come out right, because in his experience, it did. I, in the contrary way of sons—something I’m sure you can understand—took it upon myself to defy his philosophies as thoroughly as possible. I think I have done rather well at it, actually, given that I (unlike some people I know) had no particle to throw away to demonstrate the seriousness of my intent.” 

Courfeyrac smiled, because generally at the end of one of Bossuet’s orations one felt like smiling, and this time he didn’t but he smiled anyway. Bossuet raised a glass, and Courfeyrac raised his to match. 

“To Lesgle, père,” Bossuet said. “To my old friend, bad luck.”

“To Joly,” Courfeyrac said. 

Bossuet paused an instant, then tapped their glasses together. “Yes. To him, too.” 

* 

Courfeyrac had barely managed to pull out his second mattress before Bossuet kicked off his shoes, sprawled himself across it, and to all appearances, fell asleep instantly. Courfeyrac, fussier with his clothing, took his time undressing, and by the time he returned to his bed, Bossuet had rolled over onto his back and was staring up at the ceiling, his hands tucked behind his head. 

“You really are determined to make those trousers look as shabby as possible, aren’t you,” Courfeyrac said with a sigh. 

“Oh, yes,” Bossuet said. “I find falling asleep fully clothed helps one cultivate an air of overworked importance.” 

Courfeyrac snorted and laid down. A silence fell over them, long enough that Courfeyrac thought perhaps Bossuet really had fallen asleep this time. But then his voice drifted out of the darkness, soft and almost hesitant.

“It’s only that he’s frightened. Of—well, of most things. Himself most of all.” Bossuet laughed. “As his hypochondria can attest, of course.” But Courfeyrac knew that that wasn’t exactly what he’d meant. 

“And that’s the key to it, really,” Bossuet continued. “Expect everything, and you needn’t be afraid of anything.” 

“Of nothing? Really?” 

“Well.” He paused. “Almost nothing.” 

And after that, both were quiet.


End file.
